Corner Gospel Explosion

Corner Gospel Explosion

Corner Gospel Explosion is finding their way through the dark.

After 2 EP's and a full length album, they are finally coming into their own. The indie rock band has been whittled down from a 4 piece to a Bass/ Drums duo. Inspired by the simplicity and ready for a new challenge, Brad and Tyler want to push the boundaries of what you know to be a 2 piece band. Expect huge growling bass, hard hitting drums and catchy vocals

This page is designed to accompany our album JUNE. It offers additional insight to the songs. How they were written and why they were written.

This album is dedicated to the family of Chase Mickel. Let's carry his memory and legacy into the future.

1. Kid Rock

This is the last "new" song that we performed live as a 4 piece. I have no idea how it got the working title "Kid Rock", but I'm sure there was a stupid inside joke. This was one of the first songs that featured Chase's keyboard lines as a primary instrument. The lyrics were written at a time when we were planning on making a jump to playing music full time. I was feeling very hopeful about the immediate future and ready to jump into the craziness that was waiting for us. It's sad that things didn't shake out that way, but this song will always be a reminder of that time.

2. Send a Shrimp

This was the last song that Chase contributed keyboard lines for, specifically the line in the intro and verse. This original song was only halfway written, so we had to finish it for the recording. "Send a Shrimp" was part of a working title for this song. It seems pretty appropriate because of Chase's constant use of the shrimp emoji. The song itself is just a jumbled mess of words. Which feels about right. I feel like everything I've written in the last couple of months have been bunch of disjointed words, loosely held together by a theme. I just imagined that time in the practice space, when this song was written. The ideas, the energy, the laughs. I just tried to write about that I think.

3. Buy a Shirt

I bought my fiancé a ukelele a while back and it just sat around until I decided to pick it up and start learning. I really love the ukelele. It helps me convey emotion a lot easier than if I were playing guitar or keys. It's a very simple instrument, but it can be played thoughtfully. I wrote the riff around the time of Chase's accident. I'd find myself sitting alone strumming on that thing for hours. It just made sense to record a song that featured the ukelele for this album. The name is not a working title, instead it's a title with two meanings. first, at the end of our live set, there would be a moment when Chase would be screaming into the mic. It was a semi-spontaneous moment and he's scream different things at the crowd, half of which where "buy a shirt, buy a cd!!!". The second is a little more serious. After his passing, we wanted to do something special in his honor. So we emptied our bank accounts and printed up a ton of t-shirts to sell to give to a non-profit organization. This ended up being very difficult for us. 100+ people shared our post on Facebook, but only 30 actually purchased shirts. If it weren't for some very generous donations we wouldn't have made any money to donate.

It was just sad. There are boxes and boxes in a garage with Chases face on it. I hope one day they all get bought up.

4. Town I can't pronounce

The music for this song was written over a year ago. It was a late scratch from our album "Tension". The day we recorded drums, I decided to scrap it because it didn't fit the rest of the album. It felt like a good time to bring it back. Tyler originally wrote a version of this and I changed some things around. After Chase passed away, it was hard to imagine a world without him. In my mind it felt like he had just boarded a plane to Europe and left on an adventure. He's just out there bouncing from city to city, meeting new people, getting into trouble, making friends along the way. He's having the time of his life.

5. Bulb

This was a difficult song to write, record and even talk about now. The music was written around the time of his accident. It really didn't vibe with what we were writing, but I really liked it. The guitar riff was something I played a lot over the last few months. I just made sense with how I was feeling. The song is so hard for me because it really acknowledges that he's gone. It's not something I am ready to accept yet. I cried when I wrote it, I cried when I recorded it and I cry when I listen to it. In fact, I only recorded one take of the vocals. I just couldn't do it. It may be a little sloppy or out of tune, but it's the most authentic thing I've ever done. At the end of the song I placed a short recording. We used to record live demos for ourselves so we could practice at home. The audio is taken the song "Sky is Falling". It was the first time we played it all together and chase was commenting on a couple of mistakes that he made. It just felt right to include his voice somewhere.

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“I have a lot of good things to say about this band. Let me start with the negative, which is, this band isn’t big, they haven’t blown up yet.” – Matt Carter (Emery, Jabberjaw Media, BC records).

"Brad Parsons pushes the sound in more atmospheric directions. His guitar-playing offers more shading than riffs on “Kid Rock” and “Send a Shrimp.” The aforementioned “Buy a Shirt” is built on shimmering ukulele chords. The muscle is left to Brad’s drumming and especially Tyler’s bass; their rhythmic shifts carry the tunes from one melancholy melody to the next." - Brian McElhiney - GO! Magazine

"Corner Gospel Explosion shall not be pigeonholed. The debut album, "Tension," bounces between styles that most bands need years to gain the confidence to pull off. From the dance rock album opener, "Sky is Falling (Na Na Na)," to the epic, seven-and-a-half minute closer, "Through the Fence and Out," Corner Gospel Explosion is ready to be heard now.

"Tension" might seem like a straight ahead rock record at first listen, but that isn't giving this selection of songs a fair shake. "Song in the Trees" is a space lounge odyssey, whereas "Under the Covers" is a throwback to 90s alt-radio. The album stretches and contracts as it goes."

"Tension Album Review" Jared Rasic // The Source Weekly

"If you’re familiar with the band live, you’ve heard most of the 10 tracks on “Tension” before, but never like this. The album reins in the band’s energetic, nearly unhinged live performances just enough to allow all those details you may have missed while headbanging away to shine through.

The immediate takeaway is that singer/drummer Bradley David Parsons is one hell of a songwriter, with a knack for eerie melodies (“Disappear”), soaring choruses (“Song in the Trees,” “Taking Place,” just about any other song on the record) and intricate arrangements (epic seven-minute plus album closer “Through the Fence & Out”). Again, fans have known this for some time, but the crisp production (Parsons engineered along with John Theesen) makes it that much more apparent."

"Tension Album Review" Brian McElhiney // GO! Magazine

Over a self-described "spooky" musical backdrop, Parsons delivers metaphor-heavy lyrics that leverage approachable subjects like grandfather clocks and fish, to weave intricate narratives that grapple with slippery topics including human mortality and love.

"Best of 2015" - Phil Busse // The Source Weekly

Starting off, ‘Sky is Falling (Na Na Na)’ is slow and mellow, but it’s teeming with potential energy. When the chorus hits, this song switches gears to become an anthemic and high octane track. The “Na” vocals really drive the song’s energy, and they beautifully compliment the lead guitar’s riff. What’s most interesting about the alternative rock band is that they blend chiptune (8-bit) sounding synths with standard rock, and this is quite uncommon. The band does a wonderful job with blending the sounds that nothing sounds out of place or weird. Therefore, each element complements each other, and it’s quite fantastic.

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Click below to donate for the "Chase Hair & Beard" T-shirt. All Proceeds go to Living Water International. An organization that specializes in providing clean water to people in need. For more info on them go to: https://water.cc/aboutlivingwater